Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Block 1 (starting the embroidery)

I have been stitching away on my first block for the class that I am doing with Karen Ruane.
The block is 30cm square and made up of old doylies-table napkins-commercial pintucked fabric-seersucker-damask and a piece of a vintage hospital sheet .
All the fabrics are 100% cotton.


This is a close up of the bottom right hand corner and consists of padded puffs made from cotton muslin and anchored down with white pearls- French knots mainly white but there are a few baby pinks ones in there as well.
Also there is Running stitch echoing around the puff section plus some web stitch flowers in the top right hand corner and Buttonhole lace on the seam above it.





This section is in the centre of the bottom half and is part of a table napkin.

There is a tatted butterfly on the top left part of it which was gifted to me by someone and I can't remember who it was but it looks perfect here so thank you to whoever it was.

I decided to embroider a vine in Stem stitch and then add some Lazy Daisy flowers.
The scallop along the bottom is the edge of the napkin and I have added a Cross stitch and a French Knot to anchor it to the base fabric.




I am going to give this block a break and start on a new one as I seem to be getting bogged down a bit-too much of a perfectionist I think.

15 comments:

Maggi said...

A very lovely block Doreen.

Things Hand Made said...

I just love white working on white.

Karen said...

starting another block is a good idea...come back to this one, it won't go anywhere!

Heather said...

What a lovely project Doreen. Beautiful stitching and gorgeous textures - you must be enjoying working on it.

Sandy said...

It's very elegant.

Purple Missus said...

Just had a look at Karens blog and I can see now why you want to get back to handstitching.
Your first block looks wonderful and of course, I just love the French knots. :))

Maureen said...

Looks beautiful Doreen!!

shirley said...

This is looking great Doreen, it could be a good idea to flit off to a new one, you could get some inspiration as you go along to finish the first block.

Susan D said...

Love your work so far. Think using white helps to see the detail of the embroidery without the distraction of colour

Mosaic Magpie said...

This is just one beautiful block. Very nice work.
Deb

Angela said...

This is so beautiful Doreen.

Janet said...

Beautiful, Doreen. Is it hard on your eyes working white on white?

Suztats said...

I love this, Doreen!! Beautiful stitching, and it makes me itch to get back to my 2nd white piece.

Kris said...

Oh this stitching!! What a beautiful art form this is.

Sorrento said...

A beautiful block.